


Phone Call + Countdown

by tommino



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Aftermath, Countdown, Defuse bomb, Gen, Goodbyes, Mac does NOT die, Nightmares, Protective!Jack, Recovery, but he thinks he's going to, heart to heart, now with a recovery chapter!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-25
Packaged: 2019-04-25 23:51:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14389716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tommino/pseuds/tommino
Summary: MacGyver finally meets a bomb he can’t defuse, and he’s forced to barricade the room with himself still inside.In the few minutes Mac has left on the countdown... he calls Jack.--(Mac does NOT die I promise. He just gets uh, very hurt. You’ll see.)Prompt from WolfyPuppyPiles!!!Update: Now with a second chapter, Mac waking up in the hospital to face Jack's reaction!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wolfypuppypiles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfypuppypiles/gifts).



> Wolfypuppypiles created [this incredible idea](http://wolfypuppypiles.tumblr.com/post/171399856071/title-phone-call-countdown-if-you-get-tired) during our title prompt game on tumblr.
> 
>  
> 
> _“OOoooooohhh okay so they’re all on a mission and Mac has to disarm a bomb but he cant and he knows it so he barricades it so that the blast will be contained but the door only shuts from the inside so he watches the numbers count down and he calls Jack to say sorry ooohhh I made it sad whoops. Although maybe he isnt incinerated just buried under rubble and they get him out after? yeah lets go with that”_

.

 

.

 

[ 00:07:27 ]

 

Not enough time.

 

Ever since he joined the military, MacGyver’s life has been a battle against time. Racing to complete the mission, to disarm the threat while the seconds snap impatiently at his heels. Up to this point, he’s been faster than the clock.

 

Not this time though.

 

“Mac, how’s it going in there?” Riley calls from down the hall. “Jack says the evacuees are still clearing out on floor three. We need more time!”

 

[ 00:06:58 ]

 

He doesn’t answer her and pries open another section of the device. The wires in the detonation panel are fused together, specifically welded into the control casing to slow down people like him.

 

Mac swipes an arm across his brow and searches for another solution. There’s always… always another solution.

 

[ 00:06:32 ]

 

There’s no time, there just isn’t enough time. Mac shifts from disarming to containing.

 

Calculations whirr through his mind, numbers stacking and sliding into place to describe concussive force, detonation control, explosive radius. All things he needs to account for if he's going to contain this bomb.

 

With this much C4, an open blast will bring down the whole hospital wing. But there are still bystanders upstairs, being escorted to safety by the rest of his team. Maybe if he can seal off the door...

 

[ 00:06:19 ]

 

They’re lucky the bomb was planted in an intensive care unit, really. Good, strong beams around these walls. This room can take the blast, keep the pressure from spreading out into the hall. The ceiling will no doubt fall in, but Mac knows he can contain the explosion before it rips sideways through the floor to compromise the rest of the building’s structure.

 

The developing plan jolts to a stop when he realizes a flaw.

He’ll need to barricade the door from this side.

 

[ 00:05:35 ]

 

Mac looks around for another exit, a window, anything he can use as a Plan B. Feet stomp above him as more panicked civilians try to escape the countdown.

 

There’s still a flood of patients and doctors upstairs, families visiting their loved ones. It's too many people to move in the little time remaining, try as they might. And Mac knows his team won't clear out until everyone else is evacuated. Jack and Riley are up there, Bozer just outside handling the crowds.

 

There’s no time. Mac starts shoving an EKG machine toward the door, flips a hospital bed on its side. He pushes a steel table toward the bomb, numbers ticking down relentlessly.

 

Don’t think about it, get the job done first.

 

[ 00:03:03 ]

 

He ties off one last bracing line and then presses his spine against the wall, exhausted. Mac has used every last piece of equipment in the room to angle the blast toward the reinforced concrete wall opposite the door. This is all he can do.

 

Red digits still glow on the timer, and Mac is tempted to crawl back to the bomb and search pointlessly for another defusion method. But if he doesn’t make it out of this… he knows a better way to spend these last few minutes.

 

He fishes the cell phone out of his pocket, ignoring how his fingers shake as he taps the top of his speed-dial list. Mac presses the phone to his ear and drops his head back against the wall. He can't take his eyes off the numbers.

 

It rings twice before Jack picks up.

 

“Hey man, are we clear? Cutting it a bit close there by my watch.” The older agent is distracted and out of breath, still directing evacuees. Mac swallows thickly and realizes he has no idea how to start this conversation. He didn’t think much further than wanting to hear Jack’s voice.

 

His partner must catch something in the silence, voice snapping to seriousness. “Mac? Buddy, what’s going on. Talk to me here.”

 

[ 00:02:48 ]

 

Mac’s throat squeezes painfully. “There’s um, there’s not enough time. I c-can’t defuse it in time.” Jack swears away from the mic. It's easier for Mac to give a situation report, describe the mission just as always. “I contained the room as best I can, it should keep the blast from bringing the building down.”

 

“Shit,” Jack says flatly. “Alright, we still have a few minutes left before the kaboom. Come upstairs and we’ll get the nearest civilians out through the fire escape. Can you get here in time?”

 

Mac ignores the question. “You need to clear everyone out in the three levels above room 122. The blast will take out the ceiling beams and you can’t leave anyone in the space above it.”

 

“Yeah yeah I’m on it,” Jack answers. “Where do I meet you?”

 

The blonde risks a glance at the timer.

 

[ 00:02:24 ]

 

“Mac? Mac, where do I meet you?”

 

A choked huff of breath escapes the younger agent’s chest before he can stop it. Jack calls his name again, voice twisting into fear. He knows, he knows something’s gone wrong.

 

Mac slides down, sitting on the cold floor with his back to the wall. There’s a mattress in front of him now, blocking the red glow of the numbers.

 

“I had to barricade the door,” he whispers.

 

Jack _knows,_ but questions it anyway. “What do you mean? Where are you now? Don’t tell me you’re on the wrong side of the godda-”

 

“Jack. Jack I’m really sorry.”

 

“Don’t you do this to me, I’m coming down.”

 

“No!” Mac’s heart jumps. No more victims, no one but him. “Don’t get any closer! There’s no time left.”

 

His partner sounds livid, anger the only thing that could possibly mask the panic clawing at the edge of his voice. “Mac I swear to all that’s holy, you had better start moving whatever pile you made and get out that door right now.”

 

“I… I know I don’t have to ask you to look after Riley and Boz, but it feels important that I say it anyway,” Mac continues. Jack curses again and then starts running. His footsteps echo through the stairway as he races down toward the intensive care unit.

 

[ 00:01:12 ]

 

He’s safe now. There’s not enough time for Jack to get close.

 

Mac feels a burning at the edge of his eyes and takes a shaky breath into the phone. He curls his knees up to his chest. No one can see him anyway.

 

“Thanks Jack. Thank you for always watching m-my back, and for the birthday party. And for all the cold pizza after missions.” He gives a watery little laugh. These aren’t really impressive last words, but it seems those moments are all he can think of right now.

 

“Angus MacGyver don’t you dare say goodbye to me,” Jack says.

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“D-don’t apologize either. Get out of there, get out of that room now, Mac.” Jack is pleading now, bargaining with time and with Mac alike. “C’mon, kid.”

 

“I really am so sorry, Jack,” the blonde murmurs. If he talks any louder, the other agent might hear the sob caught in his chest. Mac peeks over the mattress for a moment.

 

[ 00:00:49 ]

 

“Don’t do this to me, Mac, please. Not by yourself.” The pain in Jack’s voice makes the younger agent’s ribs squeeze tight, slowly pushing the breath from his lungs. His partner is breathless too, throwing himself toward danger for Mac’s sake - as always. “You and me both, no matter the risk. You promised you weren’t gonna leave me behind on anything.”

 

Mac digs the heel of his palm into his eye, sniffling. He’s not scared, not really. Maybe his body is just conditioned to stay cool in the face of countdowns. Or maybe it’s a kind of shock kicking in.

 

He does wish he had more time though. More time with Jack, more time with the team. Maybe more time to find his dad, with his partner’s help of course. He mutters all that into the phone, needing to get the words to Jack in time.

 

“Mac I- please, don’t. I’m almost there, I’ll be right there.” Jack knows there’s seconds left on the clock now. But he doesn’t stop running.

 

MacGyver is reminded of something the older agent had said to him, standing on a pressure plate in the back of an armored van. Jack said it with such confidence, with complete certainty that his words were true.

 

Mac speaks up again. “N-no matter what happens here, Jack… It’s not your fault.” His partner finally breaks, an agonized sound tearing across the phone.

 

 _“No no no no,”_ he’s repeating. The countdown hits single digits.

 

Survival instinct finally penetrates his grief, and Mac pulls himself into a ball behind the steel bedframe. One hand yanks the hospital mattress into meager cover above him, and the other presses the phone closer to his ear. Mac tamps down on a whimper as he hears the ignition pin drop.

 

“I love you, Ja-”

 

White.

  
.

\---

  
.

When they finally dig him out of the rubble, Jack thinks for sure that they’re removing a body. Mac’s face is pale and streaked with blood. Blonde mixes with rusty brown and fresh red, and the rest of him isn’t in any better shape. His limbs are loose at the joints and ragdoll limp when they pull his body out from a twisted steel bed frame.

 

_He’s dead. He’s gone forever._

 

But the rescue dogs are barking and paramedics are rushing forward, which means Jack’s heart can start pumping again. Riley jumps to her feet, shock blanket slipping off her shoulders. She shakes Bozer into awareness, his heavy head lifting from between clasped hands to stare up in shock at the sudden discovery.

 

Jack had never taken his eyes off the crumbled ICU wing, southeast corner having slumped forward into the earth. Mac’s “containment” had saved the building and everyone inside it.

 

It also dumped two whole rooms of rubble on top of him.

 

The medics wave over for a stretcher, and Jack immediately starts running. He nearly beats the EMTs there, but someone holds him back just a few feet away. Says something about the ground being unstable, about letting the paramedics do their work.

 

Jack doesn’t care. He needs to see, damn it, let him _see._

 

They strap a neck brace around MacGyver’s throat, and carefully position him onto the stretcher. He looks worse up close, mottled bruises and blood showing through the torn flannel. But as they rush the younger agent toward a gurney, Jack catches a subtle movement that nearly sends his knees buckling with relief.

 

He staggers for a moment and Riley pulls him into a hug, tears on her cheeks.

 

Mac’s still breathing.

 

.

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Should I write a recovery chapter of Jack facing Mac in the hospital?  
>  _I don’t know what he’d say though, would he be mad? Heartbroken? Traumatized?_
> 
> Wolfy thank you a thousand times over for sharing your incredible ideas with everybody ♥


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mac finally wakes up, battered and bruised in his hospital bed. Jack has been waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU SO MUCH!! I got so many encouraging comments on the last chapter that I sprinted through another one, and just couldn’t wait to share it. ♥ Plus I _love_ using reader suggestions, so keep an eye out for your words/ideas to appear in this one!

.

 

.

 

The heart monitor beeps softly beside Jack’s chair. A nurse had offered to turn down the volume, now that MacGyver was stable. An alert will chime at the main station if there’s any significant change in his heart rate, so really the beeping isn’t necessary anymore.

 

Jack finds the steady tone more reassuring than any medical sheet, and had turned her down. This volume is just fine, thanks.

 

Mac sleeps quietly between stark white sheets. Jack grips the younger agent’s hand a little tighter. They’ve both spent their fair share of time in hospitals, but the anxiety of waiting at a bedside is something he’ll never shake off.

 

Jack has read the doctors’ notes, seen the x-rays, and sat outside surgery for hours waiting on news. He’d even made the mistake of googling the term “thoracic pressure” at one point. Turns out Mac had nearly suffocated, the weight of two floors pressing down on his ribcage for so long. The steel bed frame is all that saved him in the end.

 

The difference is that this time, waiting in a hospital room just makes it worse. Jack’s heart squeezes every time he glances down at the bed frame or over to certain machines. He can still picture the twisted metal in the wreckage, cables and IV tubes tangling around Mac’s limp body as they pulled him out.

 

Jack has slept here for a few days now, and he’s already had nightmares of the team only finding pieces of MacGyver in the rubble. Locking himself in a room with a live explosive... _What was he thinking?_

 

It’s a miracle the boy in is one piece anyway. Mac has two significant puncture wounds on his leg, where falling metal had pierced the muscle and snapped his tibia. He’ll need physical therapy for that before they put him back in the field, and Jack will be there with him every step of the way. Hell, he’ll camp out in the kid’s living room for a while if he has to.

 

In fact, he suspects he won’t be letting the blonde out of his sight for a long while now. Jack never should have gone upstairs to let Mac deal with the bomb alone. He never should have stopped watching his partner’s back.

 

How could Jack forget that Mac needs someone to protect him from himself at times?

 

He scrubs a hand over his face and shifts in his chair. A dog-eared copy of _Treasure Island_ sits at the table next to Jack’s impromptu sleeping arrangements. It’s his usual read whenever waiting for Mac to wake up from an injury, but he can’t bring himself to focus on the familiar words this time around.

 

In addition to the broken leg and one hell of a concussion, the younger agent has scattered fractures all across his body - the worst being a crack in his pelvis. “Collapsed ceiling beam, most likely,” an EMT in the ambulance had said while examining the deep purple smear across Mac’s side. “We’re lucky it missed his ribs,” she noted over the siren’s wail. “Would have shattered them.”

 

 _Lucky,_ Jack thinks. _Mac is only alive because of luck. There was no plan, no crazy improvisation to save his life. Just luck._

 

Those wounds are covered up now, wrapped under sterile bandages and casts. Unfortunately, there’s not much they can do about the bruising. Mottled contusions cover any given inch of Mac’s pale skin, and colorful hues splash across the right side of his face. Those bruises are the hardest for Jack to look at, but he forces himself to watch for movement beneath the lowered lids.

 

Mac had dreamed a few times this week, closed eyes roving in the familiar pattern of a nightmare. Jack had frantically called for a nurse one night when Mac couldn’t wake up, the blonde shifting painfully beneath the covers. All she could do was increase his morphine drip, but at least Mac had settled down soon after.

 

Jack wouldn’t sleep the whole rest of the night. He spent the hours wondering if Mac dreamed of being trapped beneath the metal.

 

“C’mon Mac, show me those baby blues,” Jack murmurs, lifting their clasped hands to rest at his chin. The younger agent has been showing signs of waking all day, and Jack has been on the edge of his seat since the first stirring. “Please wake up, buddy.”

 

And it’s almost as if his partner can hear him, because the next thing Jack sees is fluttering lashes. Mac groans, and Jack feels all the tension leave his shoulders in a rush.

 

He’s awake. He’s really going to be okay.

 

 _Thank you,_ Jack thinks to anyone who might be listening. He’s never been much for faith, but in the last few days he’s covered just about every other base. Eventually you start sending some thoughts to the clouds too. _Thank you for not taking him from me._

 

“J...ack?” Mac croaks, looking around like he can’t focus on the room properly. He calls for his partner anyway, instinctively, and the older agent is beside him in a second with a cup of ice chips.

 

“Easy there, no chit-chat til you get some fluids.” He almost can’t believe he’s talking to Mac again. When the phone line fizzed out and Jack was thrown back by the blast, he had thought he’d never hear MacGyver again. That he’d just listened to his best friend’s last words - a shaky goodbye through a cell phone speaker.

 

Mac takes a bit of ice gratefully and seems to become more aware of his surroundings. He looks vaguely surprised to still be alive.

 

“Guess I’m more like a cockroach than I thought,” he chuckles painfully.

 

A joke. The kid asks Jack to look after his family when he’s gone, blows himself up, and then has the nerve to crack a joke. All the relief Jack felt coalesces into frustration instead. Does Mac not _realize_ what he’s done?

 

“Stop it,” Jack says. “Don’t- don’t even start with the wisecracks.” Mac’s face turns to shock, taken aback by the anger in the other agent’s voice. His surprise just makes Jack more incensed, as if the blonde didn’t think someone would care so much.

 

“Say you just watched me get buried under two tons of shrapnel - would you be making jokes then?” he demands. “Because you nearly killed me Mac, _you nearly tore my heart out_ with that stunt you pulled back there.”

 

He rubs at his eyes with a free hand, then stares down at the battered fist clasped in his own. All Jack can think of is that phone call, Mac dancing around the fact that he’d essentially built himself a tomb.

 

“How could you do that to me, Mac?” Jack’s voice breaks, and he forces himself to look up at his partner.

 

Mac is curled back into his bed, eyes downcast and distant as he seems to shrink away. “I’m… I’m sorry,” he murmurs, voice small. The smaller agent sniffles, and then…

 

Oh. Oh shit.

 

All of Jack’s frustration melts away in an instant when Mac starts to cry, and he leans forward to pull the younger agent into a gentle embrace **.** “Mac, Mackie I’m sorry, shh.” A sob shivers through the blonde’s shoulders and Jack is immediately swamped in guilt again.

 

“I’m not- I’m not mad at you, I’m sorry. It’s okay buddy,” Jack tries to say. “I was just… so scared, kid. I thought I had lost you. That you were…” His throat pinches painfully before he can finish. He settles for clutching his partner just a little bit tighter, not forgetting for a second how many wounds crisscross the patient in his arms.

 

Mac squeezes back as hard as his broken body can manage. That small pressure finally brings Jack to tears as well, and he buries his head further into the hug when his face crumples.

 

Mac pulls in a shaking breath. “I know. I know why you’re mad, I’m so sorry Jack,” he mumbles into the older agent’s neck.

 

Jack needs to explain himself, needs to say what’s usually just left to a strong clap on the back or a quick phrase of affection after particularly hazardous successes.

 

“I’m not mad at you... I’m mad at how you seem to count yourself as an acceptable sacrifice,” Jack says. He pulls away carefully, far enough that he can settle Mac back onto the pillows and look him in the eye. “I’m mad that you can be so _damn_ selfless. That you can be so brave, and so stupidly brilliant all the time.”

 

Jack keeps going. He might as well voice all the emotions that have been bottling up like a molotov in his chest the last few days.

 

“I’m proud of you Mac, every day. But I’m awful scared of you too. Scared of what you’ll do to me one mission, when you play with fire like this and then don’t walk away from it alive.”

 

Mac stares up at him with the most stricken expression he’s ever seen. It takes a lot to leave the blonde genius speechless, but hell if Jack hasn’t pulled it off.

 

“I just don’t know how to protect you from your own idea of what’s right, Mac,” he admits. “I don’t know how to make you realize that your life ain’t a negotiable factor.”

 

The two sit in silence for a moment, Jack wiping impatiently at his eyes. Eventually MacGyver finds his voice.

 

“I wanted to keep everyone safe,” he says softly.

 

“I know ya did, buddy,” Jack answers with weak smile. “And you always do.”

 

“I’m sor-”

 

Jack interrupts him. “I’m sorry too Mac. I should’ve been there with you. You’re an expert at what you do - and if there wasn’t time, if you couldn’t defuse it… then nobody could.” The younger agent looks doubtful.

 

“But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s _my_ job to keep you safe,” Jack continues. “I could’ve pulled you away, or sealed the room myself, or knocked you out cold if I had to.” He shakes his head. “I won’t leave you alone again.”

 

“And I won’t call you with a goodbye,” Mac says. “That won’t happen again either.” He reaches out toward Jack’s hand once more. “Together through it all.”

 

“That’s right,” Jack agrees, knocking knuckles before clasping the other agent’s hand again. “No matter the risk.”

 

.

 

.

 

Mac knows he won’t be able to stay awake much longer, but he still tries his best to fight the fatigue. Just a few minutes more. More time with Jack.

 

The older agent looks as exhausted as MacGyver feels, the painful tension only now beginning to release. Mac needs to stay awake, needs to chase the worry from his partner’s face like they do after every close call.

 

But the pull of sleep is too strong, each blink taking a monumental effort to lift his lids. And while the painkillers are probably the only reason Mac can bear to move right now, the morphine has been dripping through his brain like syrup.

 

“Will you… stay h’re when I…” he slurs, already drifting toward unconsciousness.

 

“Easy there, champ. I’m not going anywhere,” Jack says with a smile. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

 

Relieved, Mac slides into a deep sleep.

 

.

 

He dreams of Riley and Bozer, warm hands in his own. Then he dreams of helicopters and radios, and all the lovely rotors and gears inside them. He even hears Jack a few times - just snippets of conversation.

 

But then he finds himself in back under the rubble, unable to feel his legs and hyperaware of the steady trickle of blood over his forehead. Claustrophobia kicks in, and Mac struggles against the weight on his chest, desperate for another breath.

 

He hears Jack’s voice calling him, but it twists, taking on the subtle buzz of a phone line. ‘ _Wake up Mac, wake up!!’_ He’s trapped and there’s no time, there’s not enough time…

 

The snap back into awareness is like hitting the ground after a freefall.

 

His lungs heave, eyes roving the dark room in a panic. Mac tries to sit up, but there’s manicured hands pressing back on his shoulders to stop him. He lets out a hoarse cry and forces his way up again, _trapped he’s trapped!_

 

A machine beside him beeps frantically, matching the pace of his heart as it painfully pounds  against his ribcage. Everything hurts so much.

 

“Hey hey MAC, it’s okay you’re alright, you’re not trapped.” Jack is there, pushing past the nurses to lock eyes with his partner. He sweeps a soothing hand over Mac’s forehead. “We’re in a new hospital. Deep breaths, you’re safe.”

 

Jack has him. Mac’s body relaxes, exhausted by the commotion. Fear still sings through his veins, but as long as Jack’s here…

 

He’s safe.

 

“Thank you,” Mac breathes. He doesn’t have the strength to explain it all, so he tries to squeeze everything into those few whispered words. _“Thank you Jack.”_

 

Another sticky-sweet flood of morphine drags at his mind, and Mac fades away into the dreamless black.

 

And when he next wakes, Jack will be there.

 

.

 

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m having so much fun writing MacGyver fics now oh man.
> 
>  **Which one should I do next:**  
>  Mac and Jack kidnapped by Murdoc, who hurts one to get at the other  
>  **\- OR -** Mac digging out a bullet while the team can only listen in?


End file.
